Music Feeds’ Love Letter to a Record series asks artists to reflect on their relationship with the music they love and share stories about how it has influenced their lives. Here, Angus Field from Coffs indie EDM duo AYA J shares his affection for The 1975‘s ‘Robbers’ (2013).
Gumbaynggirr/Coffs Harbour and Yugambeh/Gold Coast-based electronic-dance duo AYA J have just unveiled their blissful new single ‘Be Your Lover’, produced, mixed and mastered by German-born producer Jochaim Mueller (Potbelleez, Timbaland, Timmy Trumpet). According to band member Angus Field, it was written about “the idea of a person wanting their partner to give all of themselves, let go and love them in a way that they have no boundaries or walls up.”
AYA-J’s Angus Field: Love Letter to The 1975’s ‘Robbers’
Angus Field: The 1975. To me, this band has everything I ever dreamed of and wanted in a career. Starting off as a solo musician I felt it was great, but I always wanted a band. I don’t know if it was because of the relationship through music you build with members or that bands are just plain cool. There was something about it that just made me hungry for it. The 1975 was a huge inspiration to why I felt like this.
Discovering this band in my early high school years, I believed that they were without a doubt the best band in the world. Their songs were fresh and electric with huge sounds but also flashes of difference within their songwriting. They pumped me up, they made me sad, they felt like an arm around me when things were going bad, and one song was a tool I used to get me out of some seriously dark places.
The band as a collective have it all. Matt Healy as the frontman is one of the final true rock stars remaining on the planet. With his beat-up, grungy, dirty but charismatic flair, he leads the band in their unique style and with the rest of the rhythm section around them wearing clean-looking suits and well-looked-after appearances, it creates a perfect dynamic that sets the band apart from any other around them. The song that I was describing earlier is the track ‘Robbers’ off their self-titled album.
This song to me is a piece of art that has amazing stand-out riffs and melodies that cut through the mix but are still heavily supported by a solid rhythm groove. It has inspired my songwriting immensely, as I would constantly fall back to this when feeling lost or not knowing where to go next in a song.
At certain stages of my life, I have gone through extreme controversy and hard times, just like most people. But every time I was feeling at my lowest, I would go for a drive, sit on the headland, or just go to a place on my own and play this song. The feeling this song gave me was like no other – it was like it chased all the demons away. It was like a father saying, “Chin up, there are only better things to come,” or sometimes just the kick in the guts that I needed to tell myself to keep powering on, it’s not the end of the world. This song has been a vital part of my life for the last 10 years and I now have it tattooed on me.
The way this song has helped me and the way I have admired this band throughout my growing up has cemented a place in my soul and I strive and hope that I can make people feel even remotely close to that with past and future music that I have written and created.
AYA-J – ‘Be Your Lover’
Further Reading
The 1975 Announce New Album, ‘Being Funny In A Foreign Language’
The 1975 Release New Single ‘I’m In Love With You’
Listen to The 1975’s New Disco-Tinged, Sax-Heavy Single ‘Happiness’
